Amsterdam School of Historical Studies

Moritz Föllmer, Associate Professor in Modern History, has succeeded Sofie Remijsen (since 1 November 2022) as the vice-director of the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies. As vice-director, Moritz primarily dedicates his time to the PhD candidates within ASH. Read more

We welcome five researchers who recently joined the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies. Feike Dietz was appointed professor in 'Global Dynamics of Dutch Literature'; Kasia Lech was appointed associate professor in the field of Global Historical Theatre; and Josephine van den Bent, Konstantin Klein and Simon Leese were appointed as assistant professors in the fields of Ancient History, Medieval History and Arabic literature respectively. Read more

We are happy to announce that Eugenio Garosi and Renate Dekker recently joined the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies as postdoctoral researchers and Elsa Lucassen, Marielle Ekkelenkamp and Marin Kuijt joined ASH as PhD candidates. Welcome! Read more.

As of 1 November the new ASH PhD Reprensentative is Anna-Rose Shack. 

The PhD representative represents the interests of all PhD candidates within ASH. If you have questions or concerns relating to your wider PhD life, you are most welcome to contact the representative. Ideas for initiatives that may benefit the ASH PhD community are also warmly invited. The representative communicates regularly with the ASH leadership team and the Faculty of Humanities PhD council. The representative is also responsible for organising several social events throughout the year for members of the ASH PhD community. Read more

The digital history research group at UvA is an interdisciplinary initiative focusing on digital methods to explore, understand, explain and represent past processes. It sets a knowledge exchange base and networking initiative with staff members interested in digital tools and methodologies for historical research. Read more

A unique source about 17th century Northern Netherlands has surfaced by chance in a Belgian family archive. The plain-looking book contains a wealth of detailed information about daily life in the 17th century, seen through the eyes of a woman: Maria van Nesse. As a result of the discovery, Van Nesse has instantly become one of the best documented people of her time.

UvA art historian Judith Noorman and Robbert Jan van der Maal researched her life and wrote a book about it: Het unieke memorieboek van Maria van Nesse (1588-1650). Nieuwe perspectieven op huishoudelijke consumptie. (The unique memory book of Maria van Nesse (1588-1650). New perspectives on household consumption). An exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum of Alkmaar is also dedicated to Maria van Nesse. Read more

Art-Based Learning in Palliative Care (ART-PC), a consortium of universities, museums, academic hospitals, and patient organizations led by ArtEZ University of the Arts, has received a prestigious RAAK-PRO Grant from Regieorgaan SIA. This grant allows the consortium to conduct research on the role of art education in palliative care for four years. Manon Parry is one of the researchers involved. Read more

Het verhaal van Joden en Berlijn begint in de 18e eeuw. In deze podcast van het Joods Museum gaat Maarten Westerveen op zoek naar deze geschiedenis. In vier afleveringen bespreekt hij met verschillende experts de komst van de eerste Joden naar Berlijn; de opkomst van Hitler en de Tweede Wereldoorlog; de bouw en val van de Berlijnse Muur en het hedendaagse Berlijn. Met Irene Zwiep, Moritz Föllmer, Krijn Thijs, Hanco Jürgens. Luister de podcast.

On Friday, June 9, and Saturday, June 10, 2023, the biennial Interdisciplinary Conference for Netherlandic Studies will take place in Madison, Wisconsin. The theme of the conference will be: The Future of Dutch Studies: A Broader Perspective of Language, Image, and Culture.

For this conference, the scope of Dutch Studies encompasses a wide spectrum of fields and disciplines (art, design, history, literature, musicology, linguistics, language studies, etc.) as well as a range of approaches and schools of thought, from Eurocentered epistemes to decoloniality. Deadline for abstract is 15 December. Read more

Conference organized by Elize Mazadiego and Felipe Martinez | Call for Papers, deadline for abstracts 6 January 2023. Read more

20 December 15:00 Agnietenkapel
Karin Hügel, ASH PhD candidate, will defend the dissertation entitled 'Studien zu queeren Lesarten der Hebräischen Bibel' supervised by Prof. Irene Zwiep and Prof. Jan Willem van Henten. Read more

In NRC and on Radio 1 in Villa VdB Daniëlle argues that timelines in history school books should be let go.
 

Martijn Icks

In Geschiedenis magazine Martijn describes a complete Roman interior on a Alma-Tadema painting.
 

Mano Delea

In Antilliaans Dagblad with the presentation of the report on the political debate in 1862 about the abolition of slavery.
 

Adeline Koppius

In Reformatorisch Dagblad about her PhD research on martyrs.

In NH nieuws, NRC and on NOS Radio 1 Journaal about 17th century Maria van Nesse and her discovered house hold note books filled with personal remarks.
 

Bart Wallet

About Jewish history in Amsterdam in de Telegraaf.
 

Bart Wallet

On AT5 and NOS about the memorial for Vlooienburg, the mainly Jewish quarter where nowadays the Stopera houses. This neighborhood was the start of Jewish Amsterdam.

6 December 15:30 - 17:30 Artis Library
At the next Vossius Seminar Sarah-Maria Schober and Emilie Skulberg will present their research. Sarah-Maria Schober (Vossius Fellow at University of Amsterdam) will give the talk “Trusting Paper and Producing Exotica: The History of the Amsterdam Civet Cat Farmers” and Emilie Skulberg (University of Amsterdam) will present "What is a ‘direct’ image of a shadow? A history of ‘directness’ in black hole imaging". Read more

7 December 9:30 - 10:30
Op 7 december wordt in de Portugese Synagoge te Amsterdam Juda Palache, de eerste Joodse UvA-hoogleraar op het terrein van de Joodse studies, met een symposium herdacht. Dit gebeurt ter gelegenheid van het leggen van acht stolpersteine voor Palache, zijn vrouw en verdere familieleden en voor de verwante familie Acatan. Lees meer

8 December 13:45 - 17:00 Museum Prinsenhof Delft
At Museum Prinsenhof Delft, Saskia Beranek of Illinois State University will discuss matters of access and agency in relation to portraits of Amalia van Solms and their display across the Dutch Republic. She uses the lacquer baluster from Huis ten Bosch (purchased last year by the Rijksmuseum) as a starting point for a discussion of the connections between portrait and audience as well as the fundamental role architectural design played in such encounters. Examining these relationships in documentable cases within Amalia's residences creates a methodological model to also begin to understand the market for portraits of Amalia van Solms more broadly. Afterwards, Julia van Marissing, curator at Museum Prinsenhof Delft, will give a short talk on 'The Making of' the exhibition Amalia: Ambition and Allure (September 16, 2022-January 8, 2023). She will further elaborate on why the museum chose to create this exhibition, how the long and complex life of Amalia of Solms was casted into an appealing story and how objects and loans were selected. We will visit the exhibition as a group. Read more

8 December 16:00 - 18:00 Bushuis/ OIH E1.02
Book-launch presentation and discussion of Freedom on the Offensive: Human Rights, Democracy Promotion, and US Interventionism in the Late Cold War by William Michael Schmidli. 

Using Reagan's undeclared war on Nicaragua as a case study in US interventionism, Freedom on the Offensive explores how democracy promotion emerged as the centerpiece of an increasingly robust US human rights agenda. Yet, this initiative also became intertwined with deeply undemocratic practices that misled the American people, violated US law, and contributed to immense human and material destruction. Pursued through civil society or low-cost military interventions and rooted in the neoliberal imperatives of US-led globalization, Reagan's democracy promotion initiative had major implications for post–Cold War US foreign policy. Read more

12 December 16:00 - 17:30 OIH F1.01B
Brent Nongbri (Oslo) will give the lecture 'The Concept of Religion in Recent Academic Discussions' in the programme Current Issues in Religious Studies and Western Esotericism. Read more

13 December 15:30 - 17:00 University Library, Doelenzaal
Jonas van Tol, assistant professor in Early Modern History at UvA, explores how physical remains of victims of the European wars of religion were recruited for the fight. Using bone relics as a point of departure, he demonstrates how religiously-motivated violence left imprints on the landscape and continued to play a key role in the contest to confessionalize space. In response to his lecture, Judith Pollmann, professor in Early Modern History at Leiden University, will act as a reviewer. Read more

19-20 December University Library
This international conference is organized in Amsterdam.

Activists have significantly altered the way in which businesses operate since the 1970s. Addressing social and environmental concerns in the pursuit of social justice, activist movements have promoted both fairer economic opportunities for the Global South, reducing workers’ oppression and exploitation, and campaigned for environmental issues to receive more attention. They have promoted the idea of ‘corporate social responsibility', ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ capitalism; and recently called for a ‘stakeholder capitalism’, in which corporate, communal and broader environmental concerns are accounted for by businesses. How have these ideas evolved as environmental concerns have escalated to the point of a climate crisis? This conference investigates the specific ideas and practices which social movements use to achieve a transition to a more sustainable economic system. Read more

The Johan Huizinga Fund/Rijksmuseum Fund offers early career scholars the opportunity to conduct historical research into objects in the Rijksmuseum collection. Candidates are invited to submit a research proposal that draws on these objects as subject material and as sources of historical information. The Johan Huizinga Fellowship is primarily intended for candidates whose focus is on the historical role and symbolic meaning of objects, on material culture and/or the societal context in which these artifacts were used. The deadline for applications is 9 January 2023. The newly selected fellows will start in September 2023. Read more

The Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Fellowships in Modern Greek Studies are sponsored by the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, which is also the main sponsor of the Marilena Laskaridis Chair of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Amsterdam, held by Prof. Maria Boletsi. The fellowships are offered annually on a competitive basis and by application. The call is open to projects from all disciplines in the humanities and/or social sciences that engage with aspects of Modern Greek culture and/or history. The fellowships aim to strengthen research in the field of Modern Greek studies at the University of Amsterdam and internationally, encourage academic collaborations and exchanges, and give the opportunity to young and more experienced scholars in this field to advance their research. Deadline 1 March 2023. Read more